Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you all have an enjoyable Thanksgiving holiday. Please keep in mind that Wednesday, November 27th is a 12:45pm dismissal day and that there in no school on Thursday or Friday, November 28th and 29th.The week we get back from Thanksgiving break also has 12:45pm dismissal days on Tuesday and Thursday, December 3rd and 5th due to parent/teacher conferences. If something comes up and you cannot make your scheduled parent/teacher conference time, please let me know as soon as possible so that we can reschedule.We had our first visit of the year from our Adopt a Cop last week! Adopt a Cop is a program run by the River Edge Police Department in which a police officer is 'adopted' by each first grade class. This police officer visits the classroom over the course of the year to teach the students various things about ways to keep safe. This year, our Adopt a Cop is Officer Sanches. She visited on Monday and we got to get an up close look at her police car. Officer Marc also came along to offer some help. The students loved it and can't wait for her next visit.

Here's what we were working on in the classroom last week:

Reading : Since we had finished learning about all of our reading strategies independently, we learned about what you could do if a strategy didn't work. We spoke about using more than one strategy to help decode an unknown word, about not worrying too much about pronouncing characters' names perfectly, and about how to try your best, but to not let yourself get stuck for too long on one tricky word.

Writing : We continued learning about how to add details to our small moment writing pieces last week by talking about adding number words and shape words.

Phonics : Last week, we learned about our third short vowel - the short u. We also did our first 'word ladder,' which has the students start with one word and change one letter at a time to come up with a brand new word (that somehow relates to the first word) by the top of the ladder.

Math : We learned all about odd and even numbers last week. By now, the students should have a pretty secure grasp on odd and even numbers. We also practiced skip counting on number grids and number lines.

Social Studies : Last week we learned about continents, countries, and states. The students also drew maps of our classroom, which was a lot harder than they thought it would be! Your child might have fun drawing a map of his/her room at home.